We Were Born To Lose
by Random-Musings
Summary: "He starts smoking because he's bored, he keeps smoking because Lily smokes with him." Sixteen bits of personal canon about Severus Snape during his Hogwarts years.


A/N: Each moment/bit of personal canon is in chronological order. Originally written in July 2011. Enjoy!

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**We Were Born To Lose**

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**1**

Since the age of ten, Severus has always felt as if he spends far more time at Lily's house than his own. Sometimes, it even feels more at home than his own. He realizes this at age twelve—summer of '72—at the Evans' dinner table, head bent so low over his plate of roast beef, mushy peas, and potatoes that his hair nearly mingles with the gravy. It's not a pleasant sort of epiphany. No, he's embarrassed by it. He's embarrassed by the comfort he feels when he enters their living room, he's embarrassed by how much he doesn't _really_ hate Lily forcing him to watch Top of the Pops with her and Petunia every Thursday night, and he's embarrassed by the dread that settles in the pit of his stomach when it's time to leave. The Evans are the perfect Muggle working class family, living modestly but comfortably, and it makes him _sick_ with envy.

**2**

Though he has always been in love with Lily, it isn't until he's thirteen that he understands that love changes. He's no longer a nine year old satisfied with her mere presence or the way she says his name. Proximity isn't enough. Suddenly, _nothing _is enough.

**3**

He'll never really love his mother, Eileen. Not after the years of neglect and letting _him_ have the nerve to treat her like rubbish. _Him,_ a _Muggle. _But he'll always have something akin to respect for her, if only for her pure-blood roots and what she _could have_ been.

**4**

Severus is nearly fourteen when the mill finally shuts down, leaving Tobias Snape unemployed and the New Year looking far more bleak than it already is. That evening, Tobias barks at Eileen to fetch him a drink and settles in his favorite, threadbare armchair. Playing the part of a man far more intelligent than he truly is, Tobias demands that Severus stay and listen to _what is really going on in this fucking world of ours._ His voice is loud, thick Yorkshire accent even thicker than usual as he nurses cheap whiskey and attempts to mask his anger with a false smile. Tobias rambles on, blaming job shortage on the government and "those bleedin' Pakis" for what feels like hours. Severus simply stares at a stain on the puke green carpet, certain his friends never have to worry about this shit.

**5**

He manages to ruin most of Lily's date plans in fourth year. Robbie McFolley: Sudden case of exploding boils. Murray Aiken: Stomach Virus. Matthew Mercier: Dragon Pox. _It's for the best, really,_ he tells Lily after she finds out about Octavius Braddock's severe full body rash. _He's a prat._

**6**

While not all that imposing of a figure, Mr. Evans intimidates him. Mr. Evans was never quite as doting upon Severus as Mrs. Evans, and he grew particularly cagey when Severus changed from "that odd boy that hangs around Lily" into "that weird, gangly young man who always watches Lily rather oddly." These days, whenever Lily led him to her room, Severus never failed to notice Mr. Evans' increasing tensity and mustache twitching. A firm, "Keep the door open" and a lasting look over the top of a local newspaper was all that was needed to get the message across.

**7**

He starts smoking because he's bored, he keeps smoking because Lily smokes with him. Sometimes it's a bit clandestine (_Tuney can't find out, mum'll kill me), _he likes the acrid taste that lingers in the back of his throat (_This is disgusting_), and it's an excuse to watch Lily's red stained lips wrap around something with hollowed cheeks (_This is how Bette Davis always did it in the films)_. Lipstick lingers along the filter, and he pretends to mind it when they share. By the end of the summer he's hooked, and he's not sure if he should blame the nicotine or its association.

**8**

In terms of hierarchy, Mulciber is Severus' second best friend, behind Lily. They couldn't be more different: Mulciber is a pure-blood and handsome, with perfectly coiffed brown hair and blue eyes. He's fucked plenty of girls and never fails to brag about it, likely has more money stashed under his mattress at Hogwarts than the Snape family owns in total, and has charmed his way into a prefect position and Slughorn's _stupid_ club. Mulciber likes to mock his friendship with Lily, complete with sardonic smiles and crass commentary about tits and arse, relishing Severus' discomfort. Their commonality essentially begins and ends with Dark Arts, but it's a bond that sometimes feels stronger than his with Lily. Mulciber speaks boldly of the escalating violence outside Hogwarts' walls, not bothering to mind propriety or resorting to hushed undertones. It's nearly poetic, the way he weaves a tale of massacred Muggles, submissive Muggle-borns, and humiliated blood-traitors—the way he speaks of power, or of the rush he feels when performing dark magic.

_It's nearly as good as sex, but with better long term benefits, _Mulciber says matter-of-factly one night in the dormitory, taking a drag from a cigarette. He snickers, unable to stop himself from taking the piss. _Though, you wouldn't understand _that _comparison, would you?_

**9**

He creates _Sectumsempra _in fifth year and is convinced Lily will be impressed. She's always impressed by his spells, never hesitating to eagerly ask him how she should move her wrist and giving him an excited hug, filling his nose with the scent of her shampoo. He expects the same treatment when they meet in an abandoned classroom one dreary Saturday afternoon in March. He places a limping mouse onto the tabletop and tells her to watch. Seconds later, the mouse lays sliced clean in half and blood has splattered on everything in its near vicinity, including Lily's crisp white blouse. A proud, uncharacteristically pleased smile tugs on Severus' lips, but when he turns towards her it falls immediately. She's stares in wide eyed horror at the mouse's bleeding body and he _doesn't understand_. _It's just blood_, he tells her. She throws him a dark, knowing look. _That's _disgusting_, Sev, _she says. _Like you're _really_reserving that for rodents._

She's right, of course. Why waste it on rodents?

**10**

Severus isn't merely of the _opinion_ that Muggles are inferior. He _knows_ they're inferior. To him it's obvious, really. Though he's not enough of an idiot to deem them harmless—what with their destructive weaponry and love of a proper explosion in the form of gun powder or nuclear bombs—they're certainly lower, devoid of any innate brilliance. They aren't special, and yet witches and wizards are forced into hiding because of _them_ and it's not _right_. Muggle-borns are more of a curious accident than a nuisance, but they're still not exactly _right_ either. Except for Lily, because Lily is different from the others. But this ideology isn't why he's intrigued by Voldemort's vision. It's power he craves, not genocide, but he doesn't care enough about Muggles or Muggle-borns to draw a line. Well, Muggle-borns that aren't Lily, because Lily is different from the others.

**11**

Eating isn't something that excites him. In fact, he's rarely hungry and at meals he is more often pushing food around his plate than eating it. If he could survive on coffee and cigarettes, he would.

**12**

He doesn't _cry_ when he returns to his dormitory from the Gryffindor portrait hole. It's more like angry tears with a side of sniffling, seemingly righteous indignation, chain smoking, and suffering through Avery and Mulciber's poor attempts to be helpful. _It's about time you shook off that mudblood. She's a stupid cunt. She'll get hers in the end, you know she will._

**13**

Severus goes a bit mad the summer after fifth year. The Evans home becomes a fortress and Mr. and Mrs. Evans are the guards, offering nothing more than small smiles as they claim Lily is absent, or Lily is ill. He stops coming round by mid July, when Petunia answers the door wearing a grin and an unflattering, frilly, high-necked dress. _She doesn't want to see you,_ she says, savoring the moment._ Piss off back to Spinner's End, would you? _So he writes letters instead, long and winding letters in tiny, cramped handwriting. They are apologetic as much as they are accusatory, and they become increasingly aggressive as her replies become more and more sparse. His attempts to guilt trip her ultimately fail by mid-August, he discovers, when Lily sends her most frank letter to date: _JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, SEV. _

It's the first time he receives a letter lacking "lots of love."

**14**

__He sits behind her in NEWTs potions, and he's surprised that he manages to stay at the top of the class. Each lesson goes by in a blur of edited notes, bare legs, vulgar daydreams, and sexual frustration. Sometimes their eyes meet, and sometimes she asks if he's found the same shortcut to the potion that she did, but that's as far as it goes.

**15**

He catches Lily and James snogging in winter of seventh year, and he nearly vomits on the spot. Not only because it's _Lily and Potter snogging,_ but because she looks _happy _as she pulls away and whispers something along his jawline. Then they're _both_ laughing and it's _wrong, _it's _betrayal_. When he returns to his dormitory that night, he doesn't hesitate to fill an unused notebook with a list ways in which James can die the most painful deaths possible, complete with shitty illustrations and sick figures. The kiss flits through his mind on loop, and as he draws up a rather grotesque way to induce gastrointestinal combustion, all Severus can think about is the fact that she's never looked at _him_ like that.

**16**

_I know what you'll be getting up to, and it makes me sick. But I can't fucking stop you, can I? I can only find comfort in knowing that you'll regret it, someday._ That's what Lily tells him on the the last train ride back to London. They're alone in the cramped corridor, just outside the compartment he shares with Avery and Mulciber. She squeezes his limp hand tightly before giving him a long, hard look, green eyes boring into his: _Just…try not to get yourself killed, yeah? _He says nothing in return and she runs off. He says nothing because there is too much to say.


End file.
